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the simurgh writes in with the latest in the court-martial of Bradley Manning. "A military judge cleared the way Wednesday for a member of the team that raided Osama bin Laden's compound to testify at the trial of Pfc. Bradley Manning charged in the WikiLeaks massive classified document leak. Col. Denise Lind ruled for the prosecution during a court-martial pretrial hearing. Prosecutors say the witness, presumably a Navy SEAL, collected digital evidence showing that the al-Qaida leader requested and received from an associate some of the documents Manning has acknowledged leaking. Defense attorneys had argued that proof of receipt wasn't relevant to whether Manning aided the enemy, the most serious charge he faces, punishable by life imprisonment. 'The government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the intelligence is given to and received by the enemy,' Lind said. The judge disagreed."

The mass surveillance and mass interception that is occurring to all of us now who use the internet is also a mass transfer of power from individuals into extremely sophisticated state and private intelligence organizations and their cronies like Google. The Pentagon is maintaining a line that WikiLeaks inherently, as an institution that tells military and government whistleblowers to step forward with information, is a crime. They allege we are criminal, moving forward. Now, the new interpretation of the Espionage Act that the Pentagon is trying to hammer in to the legal system, and which the Department of Justice is complicit in, would mean the end of national security journalism in the United States.

True. And it is happening right under all your noses, and the press is still able to report on it, so it's not like you are all caught by surprise... and despite the fact that you can all vote in a democratic system, this has been going on for well over a decade now.

As a former secret 3 letter agency drone I'd like to point out that the internet is the metaphorical iceberg. Time to loosen the tinfoil I think : ) Your 'probably' may (or may not) scale more appropriately as the tip of the tip of the iceberg. Some perspective; A single satellite can relay several thousand unique transmissions. A single piece of fiber can convey orders of magnitude more data again. How much data do we push around daily, not just via the internet, but all networks combined? The NSA has a finite budget, a finite number of people, finite capability, finite everything.

The problem though is that the NSA has been caught red-handed on multiple occasions. Then we hear about NSA's massive new data center that is under construction. So we want to know what they're up to and what they're doing. They won't tell us. The courts refuse to do their jobs when we try to sue and discover the information. Even NSA's budget is a state secret. So maybe what the NSA is doing is totally above board (or maybe not) but they refuse to have any level of accountability so as far as I am concerned, and many other people are concerned, they are guilty until they can prove their innocence.

Given the history of our government misusing its powers, I don't think it is unreasonable at all to assume that the NSA is up to no good.

They don't need to monitor "the internet", few local points have good portion of all communications, if the private companies that handle that traffic do a lot more with it than just plain storing, then those 3-letter agencies can do it, and better . And they don't need to have people to watch all over it, pattern matching could do both online and offline searches to pick "interesting" traffic, and then focus on people (is not that there are'nt examples [theblaze.com] that they are actually doing it)

The NSA has a finite budget, a finite number of people, finite capability, finite everything.

That's why they and the rest of the security organs take great pains to prosecute / persecute the most well-known 'criminals' like Aaron Swartz beyond any semblance of justice in high-profile show trials, in order to keep the 'rabble' compliant.

The average person doesn't have the power to stop this machine even ifhe or she were perfectly willing to sacrifice his or her life. And frankly, sincemost of the people who live in the US are pieces of shit, why should anyoneeven care. I am an American and I am disgusted by most Americans and theirselfishness and idiocy. The show will go on, and no one will stop it.

Here's the REAL bottom line : the world is changing, and no civilized country

It is not about sacrificing... it's just casting your vote. There are already 3rd party options... just vote for them.

As for the cesspool... I am pretty pleased with my west-European country and my government. It isn't perfect, but it's pretty good. You're welcome to have a look, and we don't even ask you get a visa for that. Just hop on a plane.

Coming from a west European country myself I can tell you that I am not happy with that government.

In fact, the universal attitude amongst family living in various western European nations is that the government is going to do whatever it damn well pleases. At least in the US people still hold the hope that the government will listen to them. All they do is lament about how much better things once were and how previously generous social programs have been stripped away but they're still stuck with unbearabl

They have been doing that for a long time, the difference is really that now we have easier access to the knowledge. Even programs we know about by pieces being declassified have huge portions of the program remaining classified simply because 1) it's embarrassing and 2) you would want to prosecute people currently in positions of power that were on those programs.

There's a big difference between 'whistleblowing on a crime' and 'leaking every single thing you have

Unless "everything you have" is so illegally outrageous that the story needs to be told.

Furthermore, If Manning is going to be held accountable for information Al-Queda obtained, then the Pentagon and CIA should be held accountable in the same fashion when an unencrypted laptop with sensitive dat is lost, or a website database is compromised* due to gross negiligence. Right now, the only consequences are "whooops, lol sorry bro. have a free 6-month credit inquiry"

Also see Jane Harman, U.S. congresswoman, who was taped making a deal with the Israel lobby to influence the "Justice" department on the Lawrence Franklin espionage case. Franklin was found guilty of passing top secret classified documents about U.S. policy on Iran to Israel and sentenced to over 12 years in prison. His sentence was later reduced to only 10 months house arrest. Bradley Manning on the other hand is only accused of handing over secret documents, no top secret ones, to wikileaks and yet is fa

Unless "everything you have" is so illegally outrageous that the story needs to be told.

It wasn't. Manning just copied everything indiscriminately. There's no way he was even capable of sifting through what he had taken to know what the juicy bits were. There's no way to justify what he did as being "for the greater good".

There is an often ignored matter of why Army security procedures were so lax that it was possible to use writable media on what should have been a locked down network. If this has happened at a DOD contractor site there would be massive fines handed down and the possibility o

If Manning is going to be held accountable for information Al-Queda obtained, then the Pentagon and CIA should be held accountable in the same fashion when an unencrypted laptop with sensitive dat is lost,...

Oh yeah sure, because intent has nothing to do with culpability in your fantasy world. Meanwhile, back in the real world, it does.

It does not need to state it in the Constitution. The US Government was founded as a Republic. If a citizen can not determine what the Government is doing, there is no Republic. The Government becomes some other form of Government.

If you are not clear about my statement, I'd recommend you go study what a Republic is. Why not go to the source and study Plato's Republic!

Absolutely incorrect. The only lie allowed in the Republic is "The Noble Lie". By Socrates' definition, this was extremely small and only intended to put people on the right path to performing civic duties as guardians of the Republic. Since the guardians were supposed to be the highest educated in society, it is safe to assume that they learn over time about the Noble Lie.

As stated previously, a Government that keeps their citizens in the Dark is at best an Oligarchy and at worst tyranny. The keeping p

I have, and while templates are nice, reality is different. There may be perfect systems in philosophy, but none of those perfect systems have ever successfully been implemented because it is impossible to do so with so many inputs with different motivations. Compromises must be made. There is no perfect system of governance and there is no perfect economic system, despite volumes upon volumes of work from philosophers for thousands of years. Reality dictates that there must be secrets and that they mus

Your claim that the system was "perfect" is false. The point is not that Socrates defined a template either. The point should be what a Republic is and how it is defined. A Republic is a Government of the people and by the people. Your insistence that this does not require an open Government simply does not fit. If citizens are kept ignorant, then the citizens can not make decisions. This means that the citizens are not ruling the Government, and makes that form of Government something other than a Re

It wasn't snark. The fact that it doesn't say it means that it could be the case if a law were drafted so. The Freedom of Information Act was drafted to accomplish this desire, yet it is limited in what is considered "free information". The data leaked definitely was not covered by FOIA. To say we have the right to know everything is false

This is far-fetched and paranoia until it happens to you.:)
Truth is that we live under a totalitarian regime with some privileges. Our ongoing maltreatment of foreign people should have been a warning, now they are coming for us. No conspiracy here, man's self-perpetuating thirst for power has brought us here. My advice is to never grab the attention of your government and it's long-reaching arms. Stick to the masses and stay low.

Now, the new interpretation of the Espionage Act that the Pentagon is trying to hammer in to the legal system, and which the Department of Justice is complicit in, would mean the end of national security journalism in the United States.

No such thing. If information is published, it will be foreseeably received by the enemy, whoever the enemy might be. Besides, it's still a crime and has been for many years to disclose classified information to any person not authorized to receive it. Just because the press got a pass in the past in some high-profile cases does not mean that law has been struck off the books.

Where does it say in the American Constitution that Congress can pass laws limiting speech? I'm aware of the 1st amendment which is pretty simple and bans Congress from limiting speech and I don't know of any later amendments that create exceptions.

This would basically mean that nobody could report on wars, because anyone doing so could be accused of aiding the enemy. Imagine a version of this where Bin Laden said, "Get me a copy of the New York Times!" and the government accused reporters of aiding the enemy.

There's a difference between public knowledge and classified information. He is not being prosecuted for releasing weather reports, stock values, or a crossword puzzle. Manning is on trial for leaking classified information. Big difference.

Classified information incorrectly classified is NOT validly classified and almost all classified information SHOULD NOT be classified. If the rules for classification AS APPLIED are "Classify everything", then the classification cannot be of any guide as to whether the information SHOULD be classified and kept secret.

Manning is on trial for exposing the criminal acts of his superiors.

Something his superiors predecessors insisted should be done in all cases. cf Nuremberg.

There is a big difference between a person signing documents swearing they will not disseminate classified information under penality of jail, fines, or death, then dissemination classified information anyway, and a reporter who has not sworn to protect classified information, publishing information. A good example of this is Robert Novak of the Washington Post published the name of cia operative Valerie Plame which was classified information, neither Novak, nor the Post were ever charged. There is a big difference between the press and a person entrusted with classified information dissemination that information.

If you want to make disclosure of classified information illegal, fine. Make it illegal, and assign to it an appropriate penalty. Then when somebody does it, charge them with that crime.

The problem here is that the charge is aiding the enemy, and the argument is that the enemy obtained the classified info and thus it aided them. I'm not sure that really should be allowed to stick. The problem with this is that it forces you to basically assign the same punishment to accidentally leaving your briefcase with some HR info on the bus and sneaking into the command tent, taking photos of the next day's plans, and transmitting them to enemy HQ.

When people commit a crime they should be charged with the crime they actually committed. I'm not suggesting that leaking classified info should be legal. However, the general trend of piling as many charges on as possible is bad for justice. There is a reason that we don't put people in prison for life for jaywalking or speeding.

If you're going to charge somebody with aiding the enemy you should have to show that:1. The aid would have actually had some significant benefit to the enemy. We're not talking about exposing scandals that lose hearts and minds - I'm talking about improving their ability to achieve military objectives in military operations. So, pictures of tortured prisoners don't count, but plans leaked to an enemy agent or sabotage coordinated with an enemy attack counts just fine. I'm not sure I'd even include sabotage in general in this unless the intent was actually to aid the enemy.

2. There was intent to aid the enemy - it wasn't just accidental or incidental (unless it was just so obvious that the aid would have resulted that it could be considered criminal negligence).

On point 1, Manning never gave anything to the enemy. Manning gave the information to a media agency who is bound by their journalistic duty to ensure the safety of the data released from them. You are wrong to claim Manning gave anything to the enemy. If the media agency dumps everything given to them, that's a different topic and a much longer discussion. Before that discussion occurs, I'd suggest you read and/or listen to a great man's words [wordpress.com] regarding the responsibilities of both the Government and J

On point 1, Manning never gave anything to the enemy. Manning gave the information to a media agency who is bound by their journalistic duty to ensure the safety of the data released from them.

The very fact that the information got out indicates that whoever received the information was not a suitable handler of secrets. The US government established a simple rule of thumb, so that even a lowly intelligence analyst can figure it out:

On your point (1), it's pretty clear that Manning/Wikileaks loses on that count. He didn't filter the info, he did a massive info dump to the public that included operationally-sensitive details of ongoing military/CIA operatives and operations.

I'm certainly open to citations (that point to specific details that were leaked which actually provided military aid to the enemy), but most of what was dumped was merely embarrassing, and there was effort made to redact materials that were more sensitive.

I'm not aware of any publicly-released data which most people would consider operationally sensitive. Again, I'm open to examples, but the mere fact that they were classified does not mean that their release aided the enemy.

Oaths are just words people use to make you do their bidding even after you realize what they want is wrong. He made that Oath before he saw what he was really working for, so it doesn't really represent an informed consent.

Also, no oath, no oath at all, absolves a person of their responsibility to oppose and expose corruption and abuse. Not ever.

Not that long ago, namely beginning in Gulf 1 this is exactly what happened. Media agencies were told not to report on live battle scenes or they would be aiding the enemy. What footage you saw of Gulf 1 and beyond was approved by the military after review. There were no live battle scenes, and there are no live scenes from Iraq or Afghanistan currently. It was leaked that the "Live from Iraq" guys at CNN during Gulf 1 were filming from a roof top in South Carolina. Back stage footage shows them laughin

The prosecution is alleging that the document leak perpetrated by Bradley Manning directly aided the enemy (al-Qaeda) in their operations against the United States. So what's the problem with including testimony that documents leaked by Bradley Manning were present during the Bin-Laden raid? It's common sense.

You can harp on for days about how "the documents revealed war crimes" or "it was the right thing to do." Ultimately, the documents were classified, Bradley Manning signed a document stating that he would not reveal classified information when he enlisted in the Army, and did it anyways. He did not release the information the the DOD Inspector General, to a member of the House or Senate intelligence committee, or even to a legitimate member of the press corp. He released it to some foreign website with no press credentials. That makes it a crime. He's not a protected whistle-blower because he did not send the information to any of the above whistleblower channels. Even the NSA warrantless wiretapping whistle-blower had enough common sense to go through the New York Times, which meant he was protected as a whistle-blower.

Dont recall there being any RPGs. Definitely plenty of AKs, because it would have been criminally stupid to be out driving around Baghdad without them. A civilian doesnt magically become something else simply because he is armed, and the US, with our second amendment, should be acutely aware of that.

They had AKs because everyone in that area carried AKs and it would have indeed been "criminally stupid" for them to travel in that area without bodyguards. They took no aggressive actions, and they didnt 'roll up into a firefight' they attempted to render assistance to the wounded AFTER the firefight had come to a conclusive ending.

The video is direct evidence of a war crime on its face. It's not Manning, but everyone else who had access and did NOT leak it, who should be charged for that. The cables reveal many other crimes and misbehaviour by the US government, are essentially all over-classified, and constitute information that the citizens have a right to see, and a NEED to see, in order to do our job in the republic.

The fact that we keep promoting criminals and throwing whistleblowers in the brig instead of the other way around is probably the biggest threat to the national security of this country today.

Just wait for the veterans to come along and tell us (like they usually do in this discussion), that as a soldier you swear to uphold the constitution, not support cover-ups, that you pledge allegiance to the country, not to the general or even president, and even that you salute the uniform of your superior, not the person wearing it.

Your suggestions that war crimes should be reported to the people trying to cover up said war crimes and not to anyone else is plain and simple support for covering up war crimes.

The helicoptor was in an active combat zone. There were reports of RPG fire. The press were not wearing identifying uniforms that press in an active warzone are expected to wear. The children in the van were only visible when looking carefully at the footage and freeze framing, not in a combat situation (wtf were they doing driving children to the site of a bombing) and the van appeared to be insurgents recovering the weapons and preventing wounded combatants being captured.. There was an RPG launcher and a

The helicoptor was in an active combat zone. There were reports of RPG fire. The press were not wearing identifying uniforms that press in an active warzone are expected to wear.

The children in the van were only visible when looking carefully at the footage and freeze framing, not in a combat situation (wtf were they doing driving children to the site of a bombing) and the van appeared to be insurgents recovering the weapons and preventing wounded combatants being captured

I have no doubt the drone pilots made an honest mistake in misidentification. The problem occurs when you watch without the sound muted they are all bloodlusted with no respect for human life and nobody in the command structure has any fucking problem with it. The criminal act is in allowing people like this to pilot drones in the first instance.

and the van appeared to be insurgents recovering the weapons and preventing wounded combatants being captured

Quite fasinating how the mind races to fill in the gaps consistant with ones preconcieved notions aint it?

That was not a drone. It was a video feed from an Apache. You are a complete idiot.

Its been years since I've looked at this garbage... I confused this with follow on where a building was blown up with a missle. I just remember the yaw warnings flashing on screen and thought it was all the same thing... As far as me being an idiot that should be obvious.

That technology is not installed on Apache helicopters. Drones, yes, but watch the video. The "kids" that you see on the tape are tiny white dots and there is no way to tell who/what those white dots were on the video.

The idea of "approved whistleblower channels" kind of negates the idea of whistleblowing. The mainstream media was complicit in the propaganda run-up to the Iraq war, which of course doesn't necessarily mean they couldn't be trusted to expose important information in the leaked documents, but it shows a conflict of interest between the powers that be and the entire goal of whistleblowing. If you can't release documents to the public, but only to approved whistleblower channels who can then decide unilaterally whether the rest of us should be informed, it isn't whistleblowing.

Imo, there's a big difference between having an ethical responsibility to try to avoid collateral damage when whistleblowing, and having the judicial system destroy your entire life with charges punishable by life imprisonment or the death penalty for the simple act of whistleblowing itself. Plus, iirc, Wikileaks actually gave the Pentagon the chance to help redact the documents before releasing them, but for obvious reasons they wanted no part in facilitating a leak. I just bring it up because that perceiv

Whether the website was foreign or not is in no way meaningful as the material was intended to be made public. It's just bullshit loaded language.A whistleblower should use the the most secure channel possible and that happened to be wikileaks. As we have seen it has been traditional media who have screwed up the most.

Surely there is some sort of contradiction with charging him with aiding the enemy while not being officially at war? If they want to be able to use war-time charges, they should man up and declare it as a war, dammit!

The prosecution is alleging that the document leak perpetrated by Bradley Manning directly aided the enemy (al-Qaeda) in their operations against the United States. So what's the problem with including testimony that documents leaked by Bradley Manning were present during the Bin-Laden raid? It's common sense.

Manning never gave anything to the enemy, he gave information to a media outlet. I think you are missing some of the "common sense" you are touting.

You can harp on for days about how "the documents revealed war crimes" or "it was the right thing to do."

It was the right thing to do if the classification of the documents was intended to prevent knowledge of illegal activities. Search what was dumped, and the reason for the classification is obvious. Perhaps not for everything, but for enough that it did matter.

Ultimately, the documents were classified, Bradley Manning signed a document stating that he would not reveal classified information when he enlisted in the Army, and did it anyways. He did not release the information the the DOD Inspector General, to a member of the House or Senate intelligence committee, or even to a legitimate member of the press corp.

Well, it's obvious that you know jack squat about both the military and just as little about classif

This is not an office that any military person uses, this is an internal office. You are correct, as my description was incorrect. Army Soldiers would report to the US Army IG, Marines the Marines IG, etc...

You sir, are the one who has absolutely no idea what they are saying.1. DOD does have an IG office. If you knew anything about the military, you would know that.2. PFC Manning was a 96B (35F for you recent vets). That position comes with a security clearance. Each time someone is read on to a new unit, they have to get "read-on" to the facility where they work. Reading on is signing the agreement to not release classified information.3. What's to stop an enlisted person from walking into a legislatur

> IMHO, the Navy Seal is a hero for being one of the team that killed Bin Laden. But Manning is the> bigger hero of the two. In the 'makes America more free' score table, Manning is right there in the> top 10.

I would actually agree if he was on the Seal team that brought Bin Laden in for a fair civilian trial for thousands of civilian murders.

I have little to no respect for anyone involved in extrajudicial killing. I may take a lot of umbrage with our so called "justice system" but, these people ar

No, the goal is to show that information disclosed by Manning ended up helping "the enemy". That this information was "in the public domain" at one point isn't important, since it's the unauthorized disclosure that is being prosecuted.

You are just an idiot. He's no Gary Gordon, Randy Shughart, Audie Murphy, or Daniel Inouye. Criteria for the Medal of Honor: [wikipedia.org] "distinguished himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty."

While engaged in action against an enemy of the United StatesWhile engaged in military operations involving conflict with an opposing foreign force.While serving with friendly foreign forces engaged in an armed conflict against an opposing armed force in which

The actual scenario is closer to:1. I sign a contract stating I will not tell anyone what you're about to tell me next.2. You show me a few gigabytes of private documents most of which you can legitimately keep secret but one of which describes your plan to shoot me next week.3. I reveal the entire contents of the documents, including not only the gun threat, but everything else down to your embarrassing medical condition and the fact that you lied to your wife when she asked you if a dress made her look fa

While I think it is the right decision to allow testimony on whether they found the documents at the compound, it seems to be missing a key component. They charge is "aiding the enemy". Shouldn't they also have to prove it actually aided them? What if Bin Laden read through the documents and they were all stuff he didn't care about? Or what if he just was interested in them and wanted to read them (as many people did). Possession of the documents doesn't prove that they aided the enemy anymore than a copy of Twilight would.

It's ironic how they charge him with aiding the enemy when the US isn't even at war.

Also, to be aiding the enemy he has to have leaked them with the *intention* of them getting to the enemy. He can just argue that those ones were collateral damage, and use the standard "collateral damage is acceptable if minimized" argument, a la standard military protocol.

Read actual UCMJ article http://usmilitary.about.com/od/punitivearticles/a/mcm104.htm [about.com], it's actually very clear that releasing any classified information released knowingly it will "leak" to the enemy is enough for "aiding enemy" definition (in eyes of UCMJ, remember Manning isn't civilian in this case). Prosecution will have to prove that Manning truly knew what WikiLeaks will do with them though.

I can agree with judge, this charge can't be dismissed. Will see what will be decision on this case.

This is how America treats it's patriots, those who swore to protect the nation against domestic threats. The corruption that eats away at America is almost complete. The fear of the government in America has turned most of the population in to unquestioning slaves that beleive whatever they are told.

Greed and the desire for material gains has turned that beacon of democracy into a parody of it's aspirations. Anyone who tries to fight this corruption and greed will have their unalienable rights trampled.

How long will the average American citizen tolerate this bastardisation of ideals that the rest of the world looked up to and once America sinks into despotism (as Benjiman Franklin said of the constitution) which world power will take it's place?

It doesn't need to proven that Manning personally handed a copy of the release to an al Qaeda agent to make him guilty. This charge should absolutely stick. Let's say John Doe is a disgruntled Armed Forces intel agent working in Afghanistan. He's sick of his job, and takes a huge stack of classified targeting mission profiles and drone photos and scatters them in the air in Kabul's marketplace out of protest. Agents of the Taliban or al Qaeda collect the papers and peruse it. Regardless of the timeliness or utility of the info, he's (unwittingly and stupidly) gone against explicit orders and policy and aided and abetted the enemy efforts. Trying to draw a ridiculous line of causality for "proof" between release and someone getting killed is not needed at that point.

Quit idolizing Manning. Just because Manning exposed some of the seedy underpinnings of international diplomacy doesn't make him a hero. No, there were no explicit war crimes that weren't already being exposed by the MSM (Abu Ghraib being the best example). I've read through the wiki leaks releases, and there is little to nothing within them that couldn't be found in the MSM or inferred through a basic knowledge of international affairs. He's a Kevin Mitnick of this decade.

No, that's not called entrapment. Entrapment requires someone getting you to do something you wouldn't have otherwise done in the normal course of things. If an undercover cop sells you cocaine, that's not entrapment. If they coerce you into buying cocaine by threatening to bomb your family, that's a little closer to entrapment.

> The guy is guilty of having no brains, but wasn't he an intellegence clerk? Here is why I say honeypot, a simple clerk, by the definition of his job, would not have had the security clearance to get to that information, no matter what the system
1) A friend of mine couldn't get into a college because he had terrible grades and wasn't terribly bright. So what did he do? Enlist out of high school into Army intelligence and became some type of intelligence clerk.
2) Intelligence clerks have security cle

BS.His conversations with that douchebag LAME-O were mainly a discussion about his personal moral dilemma. He wasn't bragging about his "hacking skills" one bit. He had access to the information so there was no technical prowess required.He recently made a statement in court (which of course the government didn't want the public to hear) that was surreptitiously recorded. You should listen to it.

I have read the Bradley Manning was an E2 in rank. I was in the military and it took only a couple of months to reach E2 in rank. So the army has so little amount of people with rank of E6 and above or an officer that they have to entrust that much power to an E2. To me that is the same as a bank manager giving someone in the bank who was hired just a couple of months ago with the responsibility of closing the safe, locking all the doors and setting the alarm. I once had access to top secret informatio